Their intense zeal for liberty was so pronounced that the colonists' struggle for freedom was called, in England, “The Presbyterian Rebellion”
Captain Johann Heinricks, a German mercenary serving with the British, declared: “Call it not an American Rebellion, it is nothing more nor less than an Irish-Scotch Presbyterian Rebellion.”
George III characterised the Revolution as ‘a Presbyterian war’ and Horace Walpole, the writer and Westminster MP, said to his colleagues: “There is no use crying about it. Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson, and that is the end of it.”
In November 1776, Lord Dartmouth received a letter from his agent in New York, which concluded: “Presbyterianism is really at the Bottom of this whole Conspiracy, has supplied it with Vigour and will never rest, till something is decided upon it.”
Presbyterian ministers were, indeed, in the forefront in urging Americans to back the rebellion. Several of them journeyed south from Pennsylvania to persuade the Scotch-Irish in the Carolinas to join George Washington’s rebel army – raised by Congress and known as the ‘Continental Army’.
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Charles Woodmason, a clergyman loyal to the Crown, sent this report: Itinerant Presbyterian preachers traverse this country Poisoning the minds of the People – Instilling Democratical and Commonwealth Principles into their minds…Especially that they owe no Subjection to Great Britain – that they are a free People.
“Calvinism has been the chief source of republican government.” ~ Lorraine Boettner
“In Calvinism lies the origin and guarantee of our constitutional liberties.” ~ Goren van Prinsterer
Historian George Bancroft called Calvin “the father of America,” and added, “He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty.”
“John Calvin was the virtual founder of America.” ~ German historian Leopold von Ranke
“The Revolution of 1776, so far as it was affected by religion, was a Presbyterian measure. It was the natural outgrowth of the principles which the Presbyterianism of the Old World planted in her sons, the English Puritans, the Scotch Covenanters, the French Huguenots, the Dutch Calvinists, and the Presbyterians of Ulster.” ~ George Bancroft
It is no wonder that King James I once said: “Presbytery agreeth with monarchy like God with the Devil.” In England, our First War for Independence was referred to as the “Presbyterian Rebellion.”
